Saturday, 15 January 2011

Seamless baby hippo

The more toys that I knit, the more I appreciate designers who go for a seamless construction.

My first experience of this was making Elijah by Ysolda Teague. At the time I found it quite fiddly to pick up stitches for limbs on an already-stuffed body, but the end result was wonderfully neat and professional-looking. On the converse side, the Polly Dolly I made a year or two later was frustratingly seam-heavy, and I think it does affect the eventual look of the toy to have seams up the back of arms and legs.

Today I've just finished making a cute little hippo, designed by Bobbi Padgett, for a baby boy due in April. Like Elijah, this is an excellent pattern for people who are comfortable knitting on DPNs and hate sewing up seams. For example, the arms and legs are placed on a holding needle until it is time to integrate them with the body, the yarns change-overs are simply done by picking up stitches and the head has an interesting use of short-row shaping.

I've given a link to the pattern and more details of my yarn (and small modifications) on Ravelry, here.

3 comments:

OMG! I neeeed this hippo. This is the cutest thing I have ever seen. I am looking for the perfect animal to get for my baby when he/she is born in July and this is PERFECT. Do you sell these? If so please let me know, I would love to have one.

Hi Jordan, thank you! I'm glad you like the hippo - he is indeed a cutie.

These days I barely get time to knit thanks to my 7 month-old baby. But I bet you would find someone who'd be willing to knit one for you if you write a forum post on www.ravelry.com, which is a huge online community of knitters.